Getting into the Spirit at the Mystate Bank Australian Wooden Boat Festival

04-Dec-2018
Photos:Spirit with her US crew.
Spirit all ‘packaged up’ and ready to be transported south to Tasmania.
Photos courtesy of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival Inc.
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Here’s a great opportunity for festival goers to literally ‘get into the spirit’.

One of the American wooden boats visiting the 2019 MyState Bank Australian Wooden Boat Festival is Spirit, a monohull, six-oared Pilot Gig.

Spirit is almost 10 metres long (32 feet) and is built of oak and cedar. She was designed by John Gardner and built by the Apprenticeshop – a facility dedicated to wooden boatbuilding and seamanship situated in Rockland, Maine, USA.

Launched in 2017, Spirit is similar to the over 200 Pilot Gigs currently used for recreation and racing in the southwest of England. The Pilot Gig design was gradually developed over 200 years. The early boats of this design were created to be the fastest boats in which to ferry a pilot out to incoming sailing vessels arriving from across the Atlantic.

Spirit is one of ten similar Pilot Gigs operating within a 15-mile radius of Maine, and there are others being enjoyed in the states of Massachusetts and Vermont.

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